Heating and cooling systems typically consume the greatest amount of electrical power in both residences and businesses. In fact, during the summer months in many metropolitan areas, the demand for electricity may exceed an energy provider's capacity to deliver enough electricity to all customers, resulting in brownouts and blackouts. As a result of this phenomenon, energy providers have begun to implement various pricing schemes which feature higher costs for customers who consume power during peak demand periods. Other pricing schemes may involve charging the consumer higher prices based on their peak consumption per billing period. In addition to tiered pricing schemes, some energy providers have also added utility surcharges to the bills of those customers who consume power during peak hours.
The prior art reveals auxiliary power supply systems which attempt to help alleviate some of these problems recently faced by energy consumers. These prior art systems provide a means for supplying auxiliary power to a business or residence during power outages or during times selected by the user to correspond to peak demand hours. Some prior art systems include the use of fuel powered portable generators which are very noisy and can often be dangerous to the user if the exhaust from said generators is not properly ventilated. Another drawback of using fuel powered generators is that the rising cost of fuels such as gasoline and diesel, make the prospect of long term use of such generators unaffordable for many consumers.
Other auxiliary power supply systems revealed in the prior art utilize rechargeable batteries, which provide a quiet, clean power supply source. Such a system is revealed in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,455,954 to Dailey (“the '954 patent”) which claims an auxiliary power supply system having a switch which disconnects a load from a line delivering electricity from an energy provider, and connects said load to rechargeable batteries.
The switch disclosed by the '954 patent is activated by a programmable controller which directs the switch to shift the load to the batteries during power outages and during time periods of peak demand. The programmable controller relies on an internal clock to decide whether the current time is “on peak” of “off peak.” One drawback of such a system is that the controller may switch to the auxiliary power source (batteries) during inappropriate periods should the controller's clock malfunction in some manner, potentially causing the user to be charged higher energy prices. Further, the system is limited to pricing schemes wherein the utility provider sets rates based solely on time.
Therefore, a need exists for an auxiliary power supply system which is capable of monitoring a plurality of sensing devices and making user defined decisions based on data received from said devices.